


Empties

by barghest



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Established Relationship, Extended Metaphors, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Multiple, References to Depression, Safehouses, Sweet Jesse McCree, i mean its third person but it shifts as to who it favours hhhhhhhh, like when is he not lbr, soft mchanzo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8877364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barghest/pseuds/barghest
Summary: mchanzo ft. dealing with alcoholismi'm sorry, i can't think of a good enough summary for this





	

Jesse hates to see good bourbon go to waste. In the warmth of a summer evening, he likes it on the rocks, outside with the wind in his hair and the clouds above his head. In the cold of winter, he pours it into coffee and hot chocolate. Now he simply pours it into the kitchen sink, a golden brown swirl arching around the drain. It would be pretty if it wasn't, you know, chucking alcohol away.

 

Hanzo watches from the doorway, saying nothing. He's gone by the time Jesse turns to look.

 

Under the stairs, Jesse digs out two bottles, vodka sloshing around the bottom that rolls into the sink like water, the last streaks of bourbon washing away. He digs around in the dark of shoes and cloaks and discarded boxes, but he emerges empty handed and turns to the rest of the house. The safe house is small, cosy enough for two people spending months of a stake out together - with little room to hide from each other. Which suits them just fine. No secrets.

 

Except perhaps now. Flat on his stomach, Jesse fishes under the bed; a sock, a pen, a shoe he thought he had accidentally thrown out more than a month ago. A handful of dried out candy and a flask, the heavy scent of gin on the cap when he scoops it up. It goes in the same box as the emptied bottles and the crushed cans, thrown into the recycling at the bottom of the hill. He huffs back up the path to the house empty-handed, Hanzo's back to him as he settles on one of the kitchen chairs.

 

The scratch of Hanzo's calligraphy pen fills the room. "Is there anything else?" Jesse stares at him, trying to entice him to turn around, to just look, without touching him. Hanzo doesn't turn, he only writes faster, the paper scrunching a little under his hands. "Is there?" The writing turns to scribbles, then the tear of paper and finally the pen nib snaps, hidden by Hanzo's hunched form. He almost smashes the blunted object into the table.

 

Jesse reaches over slowly, softening, "Hanzo--"

 

"Don't," Hanzo lurches upright, his hands splattered in black ink, "please don't ask this of me."

 

" _Hanzo_ ," Jesse closes the distance between them all the same, and Hanzo doesn't resist the arms that gently wrap around him, the fuzz of Jesse's beard on his shoulder as he pulls him close. "Hanzo," he repeats it even softer, "it's okay, it's alright, I'm not angry with you." Hanzo doesn't reply, so Jesse rocks him gently in his arms for a while, quiet in the embrace with him. The kitchen window is open and a light breeze rolls in, bearing with it the salt of sea air.

 

Hanzo is quiet when he speaks at last, "under the porch steps."

 

"Is that definitely everything?," Jesse asks, and when Hanzo nods, he kisses his cheek gently and takes his hand to lead him out the house's front door. Jesse's hand rests on the small of his back when Hanzo empties wine over the grass, perched on the porch beside him. Hanzo's fingers shake, slip, and together they watch they watch the bottle roll down the slope away from them.

 

"How d'you feel?" No reply, so Jesse loops his arm round the other, pulling him close - and Hanzo hears the comforting words Jesse whispers in his ear, but it's too hard to believe they are being directed at him. He lets Jesse take his hand and lace their fingers together, the rough pad of Jesse's thumb stroking over his knuckles as Jesse talks. All he feels is disappointed in himself. But Jesse is still so gentle with him, the little touches on his elbows so full of affection (that he hardly deserves), every word cushioned with the same warmth.

 

And it's the same at night, when Jesse curls up to him, a mess of blankets and legs and Jesse's snores in his ear. He slips out of Jesse's arms to reach under the bed, fingers grazing the floorboards where the flask used to sit. Hanzo rolls back over, eyes on the ceiling until Jesse's breathing lulls him to sleep.

 

(He could slip out, take the truck down to the fishing port below them and find one of the bars overlooking the bay. Pretend like Jesse won't come scoop him up come closing time and take him home and hold his hair this time.)

 

(But Jesse always does, and Jesse always will, and he will keep telling him how he can talk to Jesse when the feelings rise up. Hanzo knows that. It's just that the words always stick in his throat, when he looks at Jesse and sees the face of someone who genuinely cares.)

 

"Had an aunt that drank," Jesse is looking at the sky, the warm pinks and purples of dusk rolling in over their heads. He bought take out rather than cook that night, the half empty pizza boxes still balanced on their laps when he reaches over to take Hanzo's hand in his, "she found it hard talkin' too, even to her wife. Goin' to a group really helped, y'know. Got it all out. Support in others an' stuff." He looks sideways, smiling.

 

"I don't want to go to a group."

 

"You could at least try--"

 

"I don't want to," and Hanzo immediately feels bad for snapping, when Jesse's shoulders sag a little beside him. "I don't want to talk to a room of people about my…my _problems._ They don't need to know."

 

Jesse is soft again, clasping at Hanzo's hands, "I getcha." He doesn't need to remind Hanzo there is no mission. No stake out that has them out here. "Will you consider help, at least? Anythin'." He doesn't need to remind Hanzo this is hardly a vacation. "I'm here for you too, remember?" Hanzo remembers. He leans over and kisses Jesse softly in reply, hands in Jesse's hair to pull him close on the porch seat.

 

They start a calendar. Hanzo dismisses it, but every evening Jesse takes him in his arms and kisses him slow in the dying light, brushes his hair out of his eyes as he asks, "how d'you feel?" Usually, Hanzo doesn't know how to answer, his mouth dry when he tries to speak. Every time he finds his breath sharp and alcoholic, Jesse takes him in his arms and makes him brush the taste from his mouth.

 

It starts to happen less often.

 

"How d'you feel?" they cross a month off. Then six weeks.

 

"I will talk to someone," Hanzo says, when they cross off nine weeks and two days. "I will...I will go for help," and the beam on Jesse's face is all the encouragement he needs.

**Author's Note:**

> based just a lil on personal experience with a close family member  
> ALSO a lil inspired by some art by the wonderful splatbones https://twitter.com/splatbones/status/809805350111236096
> 
> (i watched like 3 zombie movies whilst very very slowly writing :y)  
> also i realised this is weirdly spaced but i dont care enough to fix it tbh


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